


nightminds

by madasaboxofcats



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 3.22, Angst, F/F, TW: suicide mention (Zelena)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1603406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasaboxofcats/pseuds/madasaboxofcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3.22. </p><p>It is later; she is numb with emotion and with whiskey. </p><p>She sits in front of the fire (because she is, and will always be, one to live inside her pain until the feeling becomes too much to bear) and she stares at the heart in her hands, less black than it used to be, thumping rhythmically with all of the defiance of a muscle hell-bent on betraying her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nightminds

**Author's Note:**

> This might be total shit because it's 2am and I haven't had time to process, but good lord what WAS that 2-hour piece of shit? I needed to deal with it, at least a little. 
> 
> Title from a Missy Higgins song of the same name -- "And I will learn to breathe the ugliness you see so we can both be there and we can both share the dark."

It is later; she is numb with emotion and with whiskey.

She sits in front of the fire (because she is, and will always be, one to live inside her pain until the feeling becomes too much to bear) and she stares at the heart in her hands, less black than it used to be, thumping rhythmically with all of the defiance of a muscle hell-bent on betraying her.

It glows and she squeezes just a little because if she can feel in her body what she feels in her soul, maybe the pain will somehow lessen, transfer to somewhere more palatable.

She wonders, as she pushes it back into her chest with a gasp, if this would be less painful had her heart never been returned to her, had she never kissed him with it, never told him about Daniel, never felt naively safe in fairy dust fate and the arms of a man who would always, to her, smell like forest (and she was just beginning to appreciate the scent of pine).

Part of her wishes Zelena were here to see her suffering, to see what her curse had wrought, to see that she had been wrong to covet a life so tainted by their mother’s thirst for power and her own for love. But Zelena isn’t here; even she left her in the end, forgoing a second chance for peace in death.

She wonders, not for the first time, why she could never quite manage that herself, the oblivion that Zelena reached, surely preferable to numbness or pain or constant loss.

She barely notices when Emma enters the room. She doesn’t ask how she got in – it doesn’t matter – she just clutches her glass a little tighter (like Emma would take that from her too, after she’s taken everything else) and stares into the fire.

“Leave,” she says.

“No,” comes the answer, and she finds she doesn’t have it in her to fight.

So Emma sits down in the chair opposite her and they both watch the flames dance.

\---

“I’m not going to kill you, Miss Swan, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says and she hopes that it will be enough to convince her to leave, to let her mourn in peace.

“I know.”

“I’m not planning on killing your mother either.”

“I know that, too.”

\---

“You need someone to blame -- blame me.”

She nods because yes, that is exactly what she needs and Emma knows, Emma always knows.

\---

It wasn’t that Robin was her “true love.” Not really. It was that he was a second chance, he was hope and possibility and he stood for the idea that maybe she deserved happiness too.

But villains don’t get happy endings.

Or, at least, she doesn’t.

She isn’t sure if she brought this on herself, or if it was Emma or Zelena or Cora (because it always comes back to her mother, always, around and around), but her pain feels earned, like this is her doing, like she was a fool to think that a dark soul like hers could be redeemed by light magic and good deeds.

Emma pours herself a glass of whiskey, looks at her like she’s afraid she’ll break, like she’s afraid she’s already broken, and says nothing.

She won’t be able to blame her. Not long-term, anyway. Regina is the one who did this, who made herself unlovable.

\---

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered even if you had. You would have saved her anyway.”

Emma doesn’t deny it because it is the truth.

“You deserve to be happy, Regina.”

She laughs. She doesn’t know if it’s the whiskey or the statement or its speaker, but she can’t contain the bark of laughter that forces its way through her pain and out into the open, where the fire crackles and Emma Swan yearns for forgiveness.

“Of course I do. Tell me, Miss Swan, how happy would it have made me had you taken my son away from me again?”

Emma doesn’t say anything for at least ten minutes after that.

\---

It comes out after they drain the last from the whiskey bottle.

“I trusted you.”

_I thought you were different, not like the rest of them._

She doesn’t tell her that she was the only one she trusted because that would be too much, too real, too honest for 3am on the night she lost her last chance, but it’s the truth and it tastes bitter as it slides back down her throat, trapped by inhibitions and propriety and the need to be strong instead of weak, powerful like her mother always wanted her to be.

Look at me now, Mother. This is where strength and power have gotten me.

She will not cry in front of Emma Swan.

But she doesn’t ask her to leave.

\---

“Are we friends, Emma?”

It comes out of her mouth before she can think, the fuzziness of the alcohol and of fatigue sitting heavily on her brain, pressing her to divulge more than she wants to but she is tired and she is aching and nothing Emma could say can hurt her more than the loss of hope she felt when her last chance at happiness raised his head and smiled at his wife.

“Yeah, kinda. I think we kinda are.”

“Then why New York?”

Emma doesn’t answer for a minute, the fire in front of them suddenly fascinating.

When she does speak, it’s resigned, like she’s ashamed of the truth, of herself.

“I guess I got tired of not being in control of my own life.”

It is the first thing she’s said all night that has made any sense at all.

“It’s always something here, you know?”

“I do.” 

\---

“Do you want me to tell you that this isn’t the end for you? That you’ll find the happiness you deserve? Because I really think that, Regina. I really do.”

“No. Leave the true love speeches and pep talks to your mother.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“Nothing.”

They sit, watching the fire, sharing the darkness, until the sun comes up.

\---

 

 


End file.
